Recent development of audio and video content fingerprinting technologies and capable mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, have opened up a plethora of new possibilities in developing sophisticated real time applications associated with detected television programming events. With the ubiquity of mobile devices, especially smart mobile phones, a large proportion of the population often simultaneously watch programming content on their television while using their portable mobile device for text messaging or other Internet related activities. Due to the presence of varying levels of ambient noise and image distortions, reliably identifying content that is being played on a television set is considered a difficult capability to provide on a portable mobile device. Such capability has to be robust to potential audio and video degradation in order to accurately process and identify audio and video content.